Cadaver Photography Remembered (As if We Couldn’t Forget) at the Cleveland Print Room

Sat 3/11 @ 1PM

Recall those Faces of Death scuzzy documentaries you patronized in your wayward youth? They had an ancestor, believe it or not, in the rite of passage for medical students of yesteryear, who would be expected to dissect donated corpses for their studies. Photos of the young students posted with the dismembered cadavers would commemorate that the new generations of doctors had the stomach for it.

The macabre pics, long unseen, have been collected and published in a book called Dissection, co-authored by James Edmonson, chief curator of the Dittrick Medical History Center and Museum. Edmonson will speak about these images — generally made from 1880 to 1930 — and their contributions to modern medicine. And perhaps, the creepy end of visual art.

Admission is free, but “the Cleveland Print Room acknowledges that this lecture may not be suitable for all audiences” goes our favorite disclaimer so far this year.